


You Calm The Storms (And Give Me Rest)

by lavachick85



Series: How Darcy Met Bucky [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Affection, Again, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky is a good boyfriend, Caretaking, Darcy Lewis Feels, F/M, How Do I Tag, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Stalking, Steve Rogers is an asshole, mentions of sexual harrassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 08:49:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17763635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavachick85/pseuds/lavachick85
Summary: During some down time after a mission Steve, Bucky and Darcy are having a P.J. day on the sofa. When their playful conversation takes a turn in an unexpected direction, Steve brings something unpleasant to light and Darcy is left feeling sick and violated. A few home truths are spilled and when push comes to shove, this time it's Bucky holding all the pieces in place.God, she wished Steve could just keep his mouth shut... Just once. It'd be novel.





	You Calm The Storms (And Give Me Rest)

**Author's Note:**

> MORE FLUFF!!!!!!!! ... and angst... can't forget the angst. It wouldn't be something i'd written if there was no angst!!
> 
> ... I just can't help myself...

A contented hum slipped out of her and Darcy leaned back against Bucky’s legs as he sat behind her, his clever fingers working through the length of her hair, easing the tangles free and smoothing the curls between his thumb and index finger before he draped the section over her shoulder and moved onto the next. He’d been at it for a little while now, his hands attempting to tame the mass of riotous curls with a degree of patience that she assumed he was gleaning from his experience as a sniper. His movements were slow and methodical and before long she’d found herself leaning back into his knees, fingers looped around his ankles as he worked silently and diligently. She’d gone to sleep with it wet and loose the night before and she hadn’t gotten the most restful night’s sleep so her hair was a mess, knotted and snarled all the way to the root at the nape of her neck. She’d tried to run a brush through it when she’d gotten up, she really had, but after a couple of minutes of swearing and a painfully close brush with frustrated tears, she’d thrown it up in a messy bun on the top of her head, her fingers scraping it back as best as she could and she’d called it good enough.

Some days she seriously considered just shaving her head but every time she mentioned it in passing Bucky’s face would sour and he’d scowl at her, tell her she was being over dramatic and not to be ridiculous.

She’d look fucking stupid with a shaved head anyway.

They were curled up on the sofa in the common room, Bucky, Steve and herself, binge watching the entire first series of Vikings on Netflix in their pyjamas when Bucky had reached down into his lap where she’d been laying to pet her hair, maybe run his fingers through it absently and his fingers had gotten caught in the mess of snarls on her head.

Darcy swore like a sailor and forced herself to lay still as he untangled his hand from the devil’s snare that was her hair and then he’d nudged her off him, wordlessly disappearing for a couple of minutes before returning with a wide tooth comb and the jar of fancy coconut oil from the kitchen. He’d set it down beside his foot after removing the lid and had pushed her bodily onto the floor in front of him, fingers plucking at the loop of her hair tie until he got it loose and slipped it around his wrist as if it was second nature. Next up he’d carefully unraveled the knot on top of her head, pulling the length of her hair free and dividing it into sections before setting to work, careful fingers teasing and working the tangles free in silence as the bloody battle on the television screen raged on. Occasionally he would scoop a finger’s worth of the coconut oil into his palm so he could work it into her hair to help with the removal of knots, but he still didn’t speak.

She wouldn’t have even thought to use coconut oil on her hair as a detangler, but somehow he knew it would work and she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Darcy had let him manhandle her into place, turning her head this way and that pliantly when he’d touch her jaw with a light press of his fingers, guiding her where he wanted her.

Bucky was evidently having a day of little to no verbal communication, but that was ok, he was allowed to be having a shit day. They’d grown few and far between lately but since he’d returned from their mission the day before he hadn’t spoken a word to anyone. He’d simply appeared at her desk in the labs and once she’d gotten a look at him, had seen the hollow, haunted look in his eyes, she’d managed to shut her computer down in seconds and she’d dragged him back to her apartment where he’d shed his uniform and crawled into bed, head pillowed on her stomach, fingers curled over the swell of her breast under her shirt. He didn’t sleep for a long time but his eyes were closed and he’d been breathing deeply as she’d carded her fingers through his hair, nails catching on his scalp and stroking that soothing spot behind his ear. He’d eventually managed an hour of sleep at the most and when Steve found out he’d ordered a mandatory ‘duvet day’ where the three of them camped out on the sofa and watched entirely too much catch-up television.

The rules were simple; they had to spend the day on the sofa watching whatever Bucky wanted, they could eat their weight in marshmallows and oreos if they wanted to (in fact, it was encouraged) and if anything came up that involved putting on pants, forget about it. Shoes? Even worse. Blasphemy, even. Let’s not even get started on having to do something that required Darcy to put on a proper bra with real underwires, either.

No.

Just no.

She leaned her head back against his knee and let out a tiny moan of pleasure, eyes closed as his fingers massaged her scalp, the scent of coconut oil surrounding them, her hair shiny and soft where he’d already worked his magic. He added the untangled locks to the rest, ran the comb through it and moved onto the next section.

“Hey, Bucky?” She blinked up at him and smiled softly at the look of intense concentration on his face, the pink tip of his tongue sticking out as he worked. His eyes flickered towards hers in question but his hands never stopped. She squeezed his foot affectionately and pressed against his legs with her back, trying to convey how grateful she was. “Thank you for this.”

His shoulders twitched, barely even a shrug and he hunched a little further over her, two fingers tucking under her chin to tip her head back a little bit so he could press his mouth against hers briefly before he went back to his self-appointed task with the same amount of determination that he applied to his work. Darcy hummed, pleased with this turn of events and wriggled a little lower so her head could rest on his knees, face upturned so she could see him.

He looked exhausted, his face was a little paler than usual and his eyes lacked the spark that they usually held, but he was doing better than he was the night before and the kiss he’d just bestowed upon her was unprompted (yet very, very welcome, indeed) which was always a good sign, so she was happy to let him plod along in his own time and trusted that he would actually ask for something if he needed it.

His fingers touched her jaw and pressed and she rolled her head to the right so he could reach behind her ear, his palm smoothing over the combed side of her head in silent thanks.

“Why don’t you cut it?”

Darcy blinked rapidly and looked across to the armchair where Steve was sprawled lazily with a blanket over him, one long leg draped over the arm, the other stretched out in front of him with his heel on the hideously expensive over-stuffed ottoman. Shit. She’d forgotten he was there. “Um, what?”

He twisted a double stuffed oreo apart and offered her half, licking the filling off with a shrug when she shook her head at him. “Your hair,” he chewed thoughtfully, eyes jumping from the television to where Bucky was bent over her, “Why don’t you just cut it if it gets that bad?”

“Steven, I can’t even begin to explain to you just how stupid that question really is. Do you know anything about women and their hair?” She questioned lightly, eyebrow cocked. “Do you understand how emotionally compromising it would be to cut all my hair off when I’ve _always_ worn it long?”

He didn’t even bother to consider her question, merely stuffed another cookie into his mouth. “Darcy, I don’t even understand how you manage to walk down the street sometimes, let alone begin to imagine that I understand the emotional attachment you may or may not have to your hair.”

She frowned at him, turning her head a little more to face him. Bucky sighed, all put upon and shit, but didn’t bother to complain and ran the comb through her hair. “What do you mean, manage to walk down the street?”

Steve sneered, his lip curling in distaste. He ate another oreo. “I’ve seen how other men look at women who look like you, Darce,” he muttered, voice dark with barely concealed malice. “They stare and leer and it even makes _me_ feel fucking dirty and abused sometimes. What the actual fuck is wrong with some people? Hell, I’ve witnessed a guy talk to your tits for five straight minutes before he realized I was even right next to you at the time, and yes, it was five minutes. I timed the asshole.” He spat. “And don’t get me fucking started on stalking!”

Bucky’s hands slowed in her hair and she felt him tense against her back so she reached down and squeezed his ankle comfortingly but continued her conversation with Steve. “Are you serious? Five whole minutes? When?”

He scoffed. “See? It’s fucking terrifying. You’re so used to it now that you don’t even notice it’s happening anymore. Loud-Larry in the mail room…? Caught him tryin’ to look up your fucking skirt with his camera phone a while back.” He spat and Bucky fell still behind her, the frown on his face morphing into something darker, furious. “Women these days, and I suppose back in our day too, they’re treated like shit. They’re forced to withstand all sorts of verbal and physical harassment and they’re expected to just accept that it’s the way it is,” he shoved another cookie into his mouth, “If I were a woman in this day and age, I’d be fucking terrified to leave my apartment, let alone catch the subway on my own.”

“That was not at all where I thought this conversation was headed, Steven. Nowhere near.”

He frowned at her, his cheeks puffed out and full of cookie. “I have layers.” He snapped defensively. “I’m not just a pretty face.” He scowled at her snort of amused disbelief and flipped her off. “Go fuck yourself.” He grumbled.

She huffed a laugh and shot Bucky a blissful smile as he gathered the mass of now untangled hair in his big fist and carefully combed through the lot of it. It felt nice when he did this sort of thing, familiar and easy and right in all the best ways but at the same time, she knew it was just as much for him as it was for her. She’d noticed fairly quickly that running his fingers through her hair was calming for him and on the days where his hands were constantly touching her dark locks she knew that his thoughts were at their darkest and he was in desperate need of a distraction. She was more than willing to take one for the team; he had clever, talented fingers and even if he just had them tangled against her scalp she managed to find a sort of comfort in him that she’d never really found with anyone else.

Bucky’s voice was scratchy and rough from disuse and the sound of it took both herself and Steve by surprise. They’d expected his silence to linger but the fact that he was ready to engage with them again was a welcomed surprise.

“… Who the hell is Loud-Larry?” He demanded and Darcy felt a prickle of apprehension run down her spine.

Shit. Why the hell had Steve mentioned him in front of Bucky like that? He knew how he was when it came to her personal safety and he went and opened his fat trap in front of her super-protective boyfriend as if Bucky wouldn’t try to do something stupid about it. She loved that he was protective but possessive was something she didn’t like and they’d sniped at each other about it once or twice before when he’d flexed his metaphorical muscles and scared casual acquaintances away when he’d gotten the wrong idea about their intentions. She shot Steve an irritated glare, trying to convey her ire and he levelled her with a look that was so far from contrite that he couldn’t have looked less threatened if he tried.

Darcy knew all about Loud-Larry as he was known throughout the building. He worked in the mail room. She knew that he was a balding middle aged divorcee whose wife had run away with his brother and she knew that the way he looked at the women who worked with him made her deeply uncomfortable in the same way that she knew instinctively not to let herself be alone in the same room as him. He had beady brown eyes and his ill-fitting work shirts were more often than not dark with sweat stains under his arms and across his back and his belly hung over the line of his belt. She was pretty sure he hadn’t been able to see his own dick in more than a few years. There was a frightening amount of butt crack on view most of the time as well (so much in fact that Steve had muttered about being able to park his bike in it and wasn’t _that_ a mental picture she didn’t need) and that? That made her stomach turn and sour in ways she didn’t like to contemplate.

Loud-Larry was your standard garden variety of pervert and he was always making comments in passing that were bordering on inappropriate but never really crossed the line into despicable. There had been murmurings about complaints of sexual harassment but as yet nothing had been done about the dirty bastard and Darcy was more than happy to avoid him.

She did however feel more than a little nauseated by the fact that Steve had caught him trying to look up her skirt with his phone. When the hell had he gotten the chance to do that without her noticing? She thought her situational awareness was better than that these days, especially after… Well, after her bastard ex-boyfriend. Moving on.

“When was this?” She asked suddenly, desperate to know how he’d gotten that close without her creepy-fucker radar pinging. It made her feel more than a little bit sick.

Steve grunted, chewing loudly with his brows drawn low. “When was what?”

She exhaled through her nose sharply and sat up, swatting Bucky’s hands away from her hair so she could turn to face her adoptive brother better. “The up-skirt bullshit, Steve, you know what I’m talking about.” She groused. “Answer the fucking question.”

He eyed her sideways, eyes flitting from her to Bucky who was quietly still demanding to know who this guy was and why the fuck wasn’t he told about this?

“I handled it.” He replied tersely, not looking at her wholly. “He won’t do it again.”

She squinted at him, lip curling. “What did you do?” His silence was full of implication and she groaned. “Jesus, Steve, tell me you didn’t get yourself written up for physical assault on a co-worker?”

His jaw ticked briefly before his expression smoothed out into one of casual disinterest and he twisted another oreo open and licked at the filling. “I didn’t lay a finger on him in the building so it doesn’t count as workplace assault. Also, he’s been fired, ergo, he is not a co-worker.”

“For fuck’s sake, Steve!!”

He bristled immediately and the hand holding his oreo up to his mouth fell into his lap. “He practically had his fucking phone _up your skirt_ , Darcy Anne! _Of course_ I fucking hit him!” He snarled. “He’s fucking lucky that I didn’t break his goddamned neck!”

Her cheeks were blotchy from embarrassment. “It’s not your job to protect me, Steve! I can get by on my own!” She exploded, flailing madly.

Steve was just as quick to throw her anger right back at her and he pushed himself upright, feet on the floor and his neck red with fury. “You shouldn’t have to!” He snarled and all of a sudden the fight left him and he was looking behind her, eyes wary and face pale. “… Buck... I didn’t mean to imply…”

Darcy froze when she realized what had just happened and the blood drained from her face. Bucky had been behind her the whole time and she’d been so worked up and embarrassed that she’d let herself be put in that situation (not again, never again) and that she’d been impotent to do anything about it (because she didn’t even know it had happened in the first place) that she’d completely forgotten he was there.

She turned to face him and her stomach lurched.

Fuck, he looked completely gutted and so utterly betrayed that she immediately wanted to fold herself into his lap and beg him to say something, to apologize to him until she was blue in the face.

“Bucky…” She reached for him and when he flinched away from her she mirrored him, pulling his hands away and his jaw clenched.

“On your own.” He offered, voice devoid of all emotion and something inside her twisted painfully. “On your own.” He parroted dully.

“Bucky, you know that’s not what-”

He shot her a humorless smile and cocked his head. “Do I?” He carefully climbed to his feet and skirted around her as not to touch her, then started to leave. He paused by the door and she was taken back to the first night she’d met him, when he’d insisted that he wasn’t worth her time or effort and there was a sharp pain in her chest. She couldn’t breathe. Fuck, this wasn’t happening. Not again. “Thought we were an ‘us’, Darcy,” his shoulders slumped and he shook his head. “You don’t… You don’t need me at all, do you?”

It wasn’t even something she needed to think about. “Of course I do! You’re _everything_ to me!”

He exploded, his voice frighteningly loud and furious and so fucking full of hurt that it brought tears to her eyes. “Then why didn’t you fucking tell me some pervert was following you?!” He raged. “Why the fuck did I have to find out – _by accident_ – from Steve?!”

Nausea swelled in her gut and she blinked rapidly to clear her eyes but the tears fell unbidden. “ _Because I didn’t know!”_ She tried to bite back a sob and when she found she couldn’t she only felt worse. Her chest hurt with the force of it and she couldn’t catch her breath as his betrayed blue eyes flashed in her head, the thought of how her pride had done that and now he was walking away from her. “I don’t even know how this happened! He scares the shit out of me and I’ve never willingly been alone with him! _I didn’t know!!”_

He _was_ everything to her, she cared about him so much but she couldn’t even pull her head out of her ass to actually tell him as much and now her emotional retardation was coming back to bite her in the ass. Her breathing sped up a little and she gasped for air as her realization hit her. She loved him. She was in love with Bucky Barnes and it scared her stupid.

She’d never told anyone that she loved them if it wasn’t in jest. Not her mother, not her brothers, not even her Grams… She knew that she was emotionally stunted, she did, but actually telling another person – a person that could just laugh and walk away from her or use her feelings against her – that she loved them was fucking terrifying. She’d seen what opening yourself up could do to people – her Mama had loved her good for nothing sperm donor father and look where it had gotten her. She’d been left alone and heartbroken, broke with three children under the age of twelve and he’d run off into the sunset with a skank-assed secretary that was only seven years older than his eldest child. She wasn’t a complete cripple, she knew that love existed and it was a real thing, but it scared the shit out of her to think that something similar might happen to her. On a base level she knew that would never happen with Bucky, she knew he’d never do that to her, but she was still irrationally afraid.

They’d never even talked about this; he’d never told her and she’d never told him and it was only now occurring to her that maybe they weren’t being fair to each other.

“You didn’t know?” He parroted, face twisting painfully even as he took a step back in her direction, then another. “You didn’t notice that some dirty fucking pervert’s been tryin’ to get a look at you? How could you _not_ know, Darce?!”

She merely sobbed in response, unable to fathom how this had even happened. They’d been having such a good time this morning and things had been so close to perfect and now everything had gone to shit in a hand basket.

Fuck Steven Grant Rogers and his big fucking mouth.

Again.

Steve’s deep voice was right behind her and his words made her feel gross, fear and disgust lurching in her stomach as she processed what he was saying. “He’d been following her, Buck,” he admitted, voice grave. “I didn’t even realize to begin with, what with being away and all, but then I started noticin’ him when I’d go see her, always poppin’ up nearby but far enough away that Darcy didn’t see him. Always there when he shouldn’t have even been near the labs.”

Darcy felt sick and she looked up at him with wide, wet eyes. “W-what?” He’d been watching her work? Oh God, her personal little safety bubble had been breached and she hadn’t even noticed. Shit. Her hands were shaking and she twisted them in the leg of her pants to try to hide it. It didn’t work and both of the super soldiers noticed.

Steve sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Somethin’ didn’t feel right when I went to visit last week, you know, when you were in R&D gettin’ those repairs on your arm finished? I went to take Darcy to get somethin’ to eat ‘cause she was so fucking wired up about not bein’ allowed in with you and he fucking followed us to the diner.” He looked at them and his lip curled. “She was all jittery and worried about you and checking her phone non-stop in case something happened while she wasn’t there and…”

Darcy swallowed thickly. She remembered the day he was talking about like it was yesterday. It was the morning after they’d slept together for the first time and when he’d gotten up the next morning he’d had to go back down to R&D because his arm had started messing up again sometime during the night. He’d hauled himself back to the labs and the medical team had declared he’d needed to be knocked out for the procedure this time – twilight sedation, they’d called it - so they could dig a little deeper into the circuitry without causing him any more pain, therefore, she wasn’t allowed in with him for safety’s sake. Steve had kidnapped her for the morning and had done his best to keep her distracted. In the end he was under for almost four full hours before they’d reversed the anaesthesia and she’d been able to bundle his grumpy ass up and take him home.

“If she was with you…” Bucky began, now right beside her with his fingers curled around her wrist, thumb stroking the back of her hand. She could feel the panic subsiding just a little bit and she leaned into his side for comfort, relieved when he tugged her up against him and buried a hand in her hair.

Steve snorted in disgust.  “She got up to go to the bathroom and dropped her phone on the way, bent down to pick it up and well, you know the rest…”

Darcy remembered dropping her phone on the way to the bathroom, but she couldn’t recall anything untoward happening after that and her nose screwed up in confusion. Steve side-eyed her and quirked a brow.

“You were so wrapped up your head that you didn’t see him behind you,” he told her gently, hand touching her elbow to comfort her. “Needless to say you hustled off to the bathroom none the wiser and I hauled his ass out into the alley.” The frown was back and he looked at Bucky, clearly displeased. “He didn’t even care that I was there with her, Buck. He’s a fucking menace. So I roughed him up good and proper and left him in a dumpster. Told him to leave her the fuck alone or I’d let him deal with you next time. I’d hoped he’d bleed to death but we can’t all be so lucky, can we?”

Darcy swallowed a bout of nausea and rubbed her shaking fingers across her mouth. She couldn’t believe this had all gone on under her nose and she hadn’t even noticed it happening. “Oh my God, Steve,” her voice was shaky and horrified as the gravity of it all hit her. She had been planning to take herself to lunch that day and she very well could have been alone when he’d followed her. If he was ballsy enough to go after her in front of Captain America himself then what the actual fuck could have happened if he’d not been there? Would he have followed her into the bathroom? Would he have tried to…?

“Breathe, Princess, breathe.” Bucky’s voice soothed in her ear and she fought to hear him through the fog that was settling in her head, her vision whiting out at the edges. What the hell was going on? Why was he so quiet? Why couldn’t she hear him properly? “C’mon, Darcy,” his mouth was on her ear and his arms banded around her to drag her up against his chest. “Breathe for me.”

She let out a sharp whine and clamped her eyes shut, struggled in his arms even though she didn’t really want him to let her go until he lifted her off her feet and held her tighter to him. She could feel his heart thudding against her ribs, the beat rapid and his hot breath in her ear as he spoke, the scratchy brush of his beard on her temple and his hand fisted in her hair.

Her chest was on fire and she couldn’t seem to get her breathing under control and _what the actual fuck was going on?!_

“Do you remember last week, Princess?” He asked her roughly, mouth pressed against her skin and she sucked in a mouthful of air into her burning lungs. “Do you remember how you met me on the landing pad? Told me you’d been thinkin’ ‘bout me? How much you’d missed me?” He wondered aloud. “You just about made my whole fucking year, Princess. Was so miserable without you all month and I get back thinkin’ you’d probably moved on, forgotten ‘bout me and found someone better…” He huffed into her hair, nuzzled the spot behind her ear. “Still don’t know why I bothered waitin’, why I tried to convince myself it wasn’t gonna happen and you didn’t really mean it… Fuck, Princess, you make me so fucking crazy that I can’t think,” his hand tightened in her hair and he pulled her head back to look her in the eye. “Love you so fucking much, Darce. So much.” He pressed a firm kiss against her lips and his teeth scraped against the inside of her bottom lip. “You’re everythin’ to me too. I’m sorry I yelled at you, I’m sorry. It wasn’t your fault.”

Darcy gulped down another lungful of air and even though she struggled to catch her breath, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Was she delirious and experiencing an auditory hallucination or had he really just told her he loved her? Fuck. He had. He’d just told her he loved her and there she was hanging from his arms staring at him like some sort of waterless fish. She felt like a muppet. She was a muppet without a puppeteer.

She worked her jaw open, the joint tense and aching from where she’d clenched her teeth so tight it hurt. “You…” she stuttered, a little breathless, “Did you just…?”

He dropped his forehead against hers and ran his nose up her cheek. “I did.” He confided quietly with a small sigh.

Darcy blinked rapidly and willed herself to say something back, to tell him she loved him too but the words wouldn’t come and she blinked back a fresh wave of tears. “… Really?” Fuck. She was crying again. Shit, shit, shit.

He hummed the affirmative and gently set her down on her feet, hands going to her hips to steady her when she wobbled a little bit. “S’true. D’you really think I’d have slept with you if I didn’t?”

“And here I was thinking that I was just really convincing and you couldn’t resist the call of my magic lady garden,” she muttered wetly into his chest and her heart did a little flip when he laughed into the top of her head. God, she loved it when he laughed. The smile that usually accompanied it was spectacular and if she looked at it for too long she often felt drunk.

He smoothed his fingers across her brows and cupped her cheeks in his huge hands. “A little bit of that,” he admitted, grinning down at her, “But mostly I did it because I really wanted to and I’m stupid in love with you.” He watched her thoughts play out across her face and he gave her a small, sad smile and hesitantly dropped his hands. “It’s ok if you don’t,” he shrugged, tried to make it look flippant and she immediately felt like a total asshole. “I’ll take what I can get.”

Darcy scrambled to wrap her fingers in his shirt and instead of pulling him towards her, she’d learned her lesson on that one multiple times, the man was heavy as fuck and wouldn’t shift his ass for just anyone, she stepped into his space and pressed herself against him. She wanted to tell him, she really did, but every time she opened her mouth nothing came out.

God. He must think she was an awful, hateful person. That, or that she was just using him.

And what the actual fuck did he mean by ‘I’ll take what I can get’??

“Don’t do that,” she told him urgently, “Don’t pretend I haven’t hurt your feelings, Bucky.” She tugged on his shirt and twisted her fists in the cotton, pressed her nose up under his chin and breathed in the salty scent of his sweat and deodorant. “I’m an emotional cripple and I can’t say it back.” She rushed to explain, her cheeks blotching with red. She sounded fucking pitiful. “I’m sorry. I want to but I can’t.”

He went still under her hands and his breath caught. Finally, after a couple of tense seconds he loosened up a little bit and his hands found her waist underneath her shirt, his fingers pressing into the warm skin above her hips.

His voice was entirely too hesitant but there was a hint of something else there, a glimmer of hope that made her stomach erupt with butterflies when a slow smile spread across his face. A smile that she found herself mirroring.

“So, you do, but you can’t…. If you can’t say,” He cleared his throat and trailed off, “How’s about we figure out somethin’ we both can?”

She blinked up at him with wide eyes and wet her lips nervously, desperate to appease him and reassure him that she did care about him and that she did love him. Even if she couldn’t say the words. She nodded slowly and it was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud on a rainy day when he smiled down at her, the image permanently burned into her retinas and always there for the rest of time every time she closed her eyes. “You’re everything.” She told him softly, her fingers smoothing along the line of his scratchy jaw. “ _Everything_ , Bucky.”

He bumped her nose with his and buried his hands in her hair, took a deep breath and breathed her in. “ _Everything_.” He agreed quietly, his tone filled with such reverence and adoration that it made her giddy and flushed all at once and she burrowed into his arms, pressed a kiss over the place his heart thudded against the back of his ribs.

He loved her and she loved him.

“You two make me nauseous, just so you know. Like, utterly vomit inducing.”

“Go fuck yourself, Steven.”

Darcy snorted into Bucky’s chest and turned her face just enough to cock her eyebrow at Steve. “Yeah, Steve,” she smirked, “Go fuck yourself.”

Bucky snorted into her hair and hugged her closer, his cheek twitching as he bit the inside of it to keep himself from laughing at the look of incredulity on his best friend’s face. “With a barge pole, Steve. With a goddamned barge pole.”

There was a beat of silence, then, “… Why the fuck did I introduce you two? I hate you both.”

**

Darcy woke up with a groan and a curse, eyes blinking blearily in the low lighting of the bedroom. A quick glance at the widow told her it was still dark out and she tried to bury her face in the pillows and ignore Bucky’s gentle prodding at her side. His big hand closed around her shoulder and he gave her a gentle shake as he tried to rouse her again.

“Darce,” he murmured, “C’mon, Princess, you need to wake up. C’mon.”

She grumbled and tried to pull the covers up over her head but he was having none of it. He pulled the covers all the way off the bed and dumped them on the floor, quickly followed by the sheet which left her bare ass naked and laying on the towel she’d been wearing before he’d pushed her back onto the bed (and left her a sobbing, begging mess, thank you, Sir, can I have some more?), shivering in the chill of the early morning hours. She curled herself into a little ball and groaned again, shoving her head underneath his pillow.

“It’s early,” her voice was muffled beneath the pillow, “What the hell, James?”

He made a quiet sound of distress and tugged on her ankle. “Princess, I think I might’ve hurt you earlier,” he whispered, clearly upset, “You need to wake up.”

Darcy tugged the pillow away from her head and squinted up at him, clearly confused. “Say what now?” He was perched on the edge of the bed beside her and by the looks of things he was well on his way to chewing his bottom lip clear off his face. He was still naked as a jay-bird and there was a smear of bright red blood down the side of his thigh that made her pause. “Uh, what?” She pushed herself up onto her elbow and reached for him, frightened. “Bucky, what happened?!”

He cleared his throat and the look of shame on his face made her stomach clench. “I think I hurt you earlier,” he repeated, picking at the small plates that made up his wrist. “You’re bleeding.”

She blinked at him for a second then followed his gaze down to her thighs, an irritated muttered curse spilling from her lips. “Fucking fuckety fuck!” She swore quietly as she took stock of the situation, the blood on her thighs and all over the towel under her, the bright red swathe of it on his leg and she flushed with mortified embarrassment. Her period had finally decided to make an appearance, four days late (she hadn’t been worried, not really, she was never really that regular anyway). “Shit, Bucky, I’m so sorry!” She winced and carefully sat halfway up, trying to make sure her butt didn’t leave the towel underneath her for fear of flooding all over the bed and ruining the mattress. “I’m alright,” she assured him. “Just fucking embarrassed. Could you grab me another towel?”

“’course I can.” He fidgeted a little and hurried into the bathroom to do as she asked, returning quickly with one of the bigger fluffy yellow towels that he’d brought over from his apartment. It was thicker than any she owned, more expensive and better quality and it absorbed water like nobody’s business. He handed it to her and helped tuck it under her hips wordlessly. “Are you alright? Are you sure it wasn’t me?”

She thought back to earlier in the night and let out a sigh as everything clicked into place. She’d had an awful day at work and nothing had gone her way, her head had been screaming at her and her back was so sore that she couldn’t even sit in her chair at her desk. When she’d gotten back to her apartment (not hers and Jane’s anymore – Jane had moved into a purpose built apartment meant for her and Thor weeks ago) and had found Bucky standing in her living room in nothing but his jeans eating a bowl of cereal in front of the television, frowning at something the FOX news anchor was saying, it was like the dam broke.

He’d barely even gotten out a quiet ‘hi’ before she pounced on him, fingers sinking into his loose hair and her legs around his waist in no time. They’d blundered their way through the apartment, all hands and tongues and teeth and he hadn’t even managed to strip his jeans off before he had her pinned to the bed with her legs over his shoulders as he pounded into her. He’d collapsed on top of her afterwards with his jeans pushed just low enough to free his cock, the brass zipper of his fly biting into her ass and her ankles locked behind his head, covered in come and sweat, shaking from the aftershocks of his orgasm as she clawed at him for more.  It was hard and fast and exactly what she’d needed and shit, she should have realized something was up.

She was always a tetchy, sore, horny mess in the days before her period but Bucky didn’t know that because as it had turned out, he’d always been away on a mission when she’d ruin her sheets and spend the rest of the night sobbing in the shower. She got painfully over-emotional when she was hormonal and she’d been lucky enough so far that she’d been able to keep him from seeing her turn into that mess of a human being.

“… Princess?”

Darcy blinked rapidly and shook her head, pasted a smile on her blotchy face and tried to cover herself a little more with the huge fluffy towel. Bucky’s huge, fluffy towel. Fuck, she was ruining his stuff now too. Wonderful.

“It’s just girly stuff, Bucky, you didn’t do anything wrong,” she reassured him as she tried to figure out how she was going to stand up without making even more of a mess. It was an ongoing struggle. Her stomach twinged and a dull, pulling ache started to pool low in her belly, spreading down the tops of her thighs. She mentally groaned when she realized that it was going to be a doozey this month if her thighs were already screaming at her. Great. Just great. “I need to take a shower.”

He was quiet for a painfully long moment before he suddenly made a noise of understanding and shuffled back a bit, pushing his arm underneath the back of her knees and one around her back, gathered up the towel underneath her and lifted her bridal style off the bed. Darcy squeaked in surprise and her hands flew to his neck as he carted her into the bathroom and set her down on the tiles, already moving to flip on the shower and adjusting the water to a tolerable temperature. She blinked at his bare back and clutched the towel to her, confused and embarrassed and a little bit more in love with him than she was ten minutes ago. She’d bled all over him and the bed and here he was completely unbothered and running her a shower like some sort of perfect boyfriend, totally chill and at ease with the whole situation.

It was more than admirable considering his upbringing in the forties; periods had been taboo then, not spoken of in front of men and kept quiet like a dirty little secret, but then Darcy couldn’t imagine that Winifred Barnes would have been the type to keep her boy in the dark about something as important as reproduction. She would have wanted him to be equipped with the knowledge, or enough of it at least, to take care of his potential future wife someday.

Her last boyfriend (who shall remain nameless, that rat bastard _asshole_ ) couldn’t even stand the fact that she got her period at all let alone take care of her during said monthly pain in the ass event. He’d been of the opinion that she should just ‘get the luggage compartment removed and leave the playground intact’, the fucking pig.

“Hot as you can stand it?” He glanced back over his shoulder, hand under the spray already and when she nodded mutely he turned back to adjust the temperature, gathering up all of her toiletries and putting them on the shelf instead of the floor so she didn’t have to bend down. That amazingly considerate _ass_. “Alright,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple, “Gimme a sec,” He quickly stepped into the shower and rinsed himself off like it was nothing, then climbed straight back out and nudged her towards the cubicle, all the while still dripping wet. “In you go, Princess.”

Darcy looked at him through watery eyes and she could feel her bottom lip beginning to wobble, the burn of her sinuses as she fought off tears. She swallowed thickly and allowed him to guide her into the shower, let him take the ruined towels with minimal humiliation. “All the _everything_ , Bucky. All of it.”

He leaned in and dotted her brow with a kiss, mirrored words a mumble against her skin, before closing the shower door. “Gimme a shout if you need anythin’, alright?” He smiled at her, a soft, warm little thing that made her belly flutter and her heart swell in her chest. “I’m gonna go grab you somethin’ to drink and some pain killers. Be back in a sec.”

She blinked at him through the water and shook her head. “Could you be any more perfect?”

He snorted and rolled his eyes at her, but smiled regardless. “I ain’t perfect, Darce,” he muttered. “You’re just biased.”

She watched him wrap a too-small hot pink towel around his hips and disappear out the door with the laundry, waiting until he was well down the hall and probably in the kitchen before she started to snivel to herself as she cleaned up.

Maybe she _was_ a little bit biased, but she didn’t care. Everything she’d ever told him about himself, about how he was a good man that his mother would be proud of, was true. James Buchanan Barnes was a great boyfriend, a national hero (who was quickly gaining popularity with the public, nowadays) and a dangerous, dangerous man who was at great risk of being locked away in a tower whilst being hand fed grapes until his dying day so she could keep him all to herself if he kept on surprising her like this.

She quickly scrubbed her skin clean and dutifully ignored the swirl of pink as it went down the drain before she dragged herself out of the shower and set about getting dressed in the underwear and oversized shirt, his, that he’d set out on the sink for her. There was a bottle of water and a small cardboard box full of pain pills next to the clothes as well as a small, fun sized snickers bar (from his personal stash that he absolutely one hundred percent refused to share with _anyone,_ including her) that was covered in a post-it note that had a great big heart drawn in the middle of it.

“That’s it,” she muttered to herself as she sorted herself out and pulled the underwear up her thighs, chewing on the snickers bar with much more aggression than necessary, “I’m locking him in a fucking tower.” She quickly popped two of the pills and swallowed them down with the water before shuffling back into the bedroom.

The lights were still low but he’d changed the bed sheets and all the blankets were back on the bed.

Bucky was sat on the edge that was facing the bathroom, thumbnail between his teeth as he read something on his tablet in his lap with his complete concentration, brows drawn tight. Whatever he was reading must have been more than slightly perturbing judging by the look on his face and he was still wearing the hot pink towel in some sort of bizarre show of modesty (absolutely confusing considering the amount of time he spent naked most days). It gaped over his hip and exposed one of his thighs, barely covering anything else and she wondered why he even bothered with it. He should be naked. If she was going to feel like absolute shit then he should definitely be naked so she could ogle his goodies and cheer herself up a bit.

He looked up from his tablet when he heard her in the doorway and quickly locked the screen, tossed it aside and his features morphed into something softer than the scowl he’d been wearing seconds ago when he saw her in his shirt. “Comin’ back to bed?” His voice was nothing more than a low murmur, the question gentle and tentative.

Darcy’s throat burned for a minute before she burst into tears and fuck, she was mortified but she let him gather her up against his chest with little fuss anyway and he lead her back to the bed, held the covers up as she crawled in and slipped in right behind her. She crawled into his arms and threw her leg over his hip, drew him in close and sniffled into his neck and he hummed soothingly to her until she calmed down and her tears subsided.

“Is it always that bad?” He asked after a few moments of quiet. “Does it always happen in the middle of the night like that?”

She burrowed closer and sighed, melting into him when his fingers kneaded at the sore, twisted muscles at the base of her spine to ease some of the pain. “No. Yes. Sometimes,” she mumbled, “Ok, most times. I’ve lost count of how many sets of bedding I’ve had to throw out because I can’t get the stains out because I’ve woken up in a fucking puddle.” She grumped, still embarrassed. “Thank you for not making a huge deal about it.”

His big shoulder moved under her cheek and he mouthed at her hair, his hands sliding up the line of her back and to the back of her neck. “It’s _not_ a big deal,” he told her plainly, “Wouldn’t be here myself if it wasn’t for that sort of thing, right? S’just how it is. S’just life.” His hands were in her hair again and his cheek was pressed to the top of her head. “Get some sleep, Darcy,” his voice was soft in the quiet and he nuzzled the spot behind her ear, pulled her tighter against his chest and settled his hand on her thigh. “Big day tomorrow.” He reminded her. “Sleep.”

Darcy closed her eyes, relishing in his warmth and let herself drift off as the pain pills started to kick in. They made her drowsy as hell but they were a necessary evil if it meant she wasn’t rolling around on the floor in a little ball of snot and tears, clutching her belly and cursing her biology until the sun came up.

Tomorrow _was_ a big day for them, they were traveling to Oklahoma to visit her family for thanksgiving and Darcy was almost positive that she was more nervous about the first meeting between her boyfriend and her mother than he was. God, she hoped her Mama didn’t goose him. Or say something inappropriate about his butt (it was a delightful butt, yes, but she didn’t want to hear her mother waxing lyrical about it, shit). She really hoped that her brothers wouldn’t show up for dinner so Bucky was spared their stupid alpha male bullshit posturing (they _really_ didn’t care who she dated but they did love making her genuinely miserable for the sheer sake of being assholes) and most of all, she hoped her Grams liked him. That was the important thing.

That, and getting Bucky’s arm through airport security.

That was going to be interesting.

 


End file.
